We’re Looking For A Few Good Reads

This week, the horrible events at Parkland led the news, of course. Among the many articles on the subject were:

It seems that just after the shooting, Russian bots jumped into the fray, posting pro-gun messages across the web. See for example this piece by Erin Griffin in Wired. This is really disturbing. It is one thing to post political propaganda. It is quite another to support the deaths of children.

Also creepy is that delusional Rightists are now saying that the murders were staged. It’s become so bad that Parkland survivors have had to issue statements that they are not “crisis actors.” See for example School shooting survivor knocks down ‘crisis actor’ claim by Nicole Chavez, on CNN Digital.

Not, alas, that it will help. The Right loves the idea of secret conspiracies. So it was that a state legislator’s aide, in Florida, claimed that two of the Parkland survivors were actually “crisis actors.” He got fired for it, which is good. But that anyone in any position in government would say such a thing is unsettling. See Florida legislator’s aide fired after calling Parkland students ‘crisis actors’ by Sergio Bustos in Politico.

Going deeper into the whole paranoid world of the Right and its response to the shootings, see also The Parkland conspiracy theories, explained by Matthew Yglesias over on Vox. It makes for unsettling reading, but at least you know where these lunatics are coming from.